The Prosecutor (2024) Review: Courtroom Drama With Fists

Is The Prosecutor worth watching?

Yes, with reservations. The Prosecutor is an entertaining hybrid of legal drama and Hong Kong action that works best when Donnie Yen is allowed to fight and weakest when the film stops to lecture. Yen, directing as well as starring, brings real conviction to a story about a young man crushed by the justice system, and the action scenes are crisply staged. The reservations are an unwieldy tone, heavy-handed courtroom speechifying and characters painted in very simple moral colours.

What is The Prosecutor about?

The Prosecutor follows Fok Chi-ho (Donnie Yen), a former police officer who has retrained as a public prosecutor, believing he can do more good in court than on the street. His idealism is tested when he comes across the case of a poor young man who has been charged with drug trafficking after being deceived into collecting a parcel.

Convinced the young man has been set up, and troubled by the way he was steered through the legal process, Fok starts digging. His investigation leads him to a scheme involving unscrupulous lawyers and powerful criminals, and he finds himself obstructed at every turn, both inside the legal system and on the streets. Francis Ng, Julian Cheung, Kent Cheng and veteran comic actor Michael Hui round out the Hong Kong supporting cast.

Yen directed this Hong Kong production, which is loosely inspired by a real case. It is in Cantonese and runs 117 minutes.

Donnie Yen’s two films in one

The Prosecutor is effectively two films. One is a procedural legal drama about wrongful convictions, plea bargains and the gap between law and justice. The other is a Donnie Yen action movie, complete with alley brawls, chases and a sequence involving a gunfight in a dense urban setting. Yen keeps both running side by side, and the result is often entertaining even when the join shows.

The action is the stronger half. Yen’s choreography favours close-quarters combat with rapid, powerful strikes, and the camera captures the moves clearly. There is something enjoyably absurd about a prosecutor who can dismantle a room of thugs, but Yen plays it straight, and the fights provide release from the talkier courtroom scenes.

A sincere but blunt legal drama

The film’s heart is in the right place. It is genuinely angry about how the vulnerable can be ground down by a legal system they do not understand, and the scenes involving the accused young man and his family carry real emotion. The veteran supporting cast adds weight, especially in the courtroom scenes, where seasoned actors bring gravity to what could have been routine exchanges.

Yet the writing is often on the nose. The villains are obvious from their first appearance, and long courtroom speeches spell out the film’s themes rather than dramatising them. The story’s faith in the system’s capacity to correct itself also feels simplistic, given how much of the film shows that system failing.

Where the balance tips

The uneven tone is the biggest problem. Sudden shifts from earnest legal procedure to heightened action sometimes make both feel less credible, and the pacing sags whenever the plot pauses for exposition. At nearly two hours, a tighter edit would have helped.

Who should watch The Prosecutor?

It suits Donnie Yen fans, lovers of Hong Kong crime cinema and viewers who enjoy a righteous underdog story with some punches thrown. Those seeking a subtle legal thriller will be disappointed. The violence is frequent but not especially graphic, and the drug-related themes make it best for teenagers and adults.

Similar films worth a look:

• Raging Fire, Benny Chan’s more explosive Hong Kong cop thriller, which gives Yen a stronger action showcase.
• Kung Fu Jungle, another Yen crime story that blends a police investigation with martial arts duels.

The verdict

The Prosecutor is a sincere, energetic hybrid that uses Donnie Yen’s action skills to add muscle to a story about justice and wrongful conviction. Its courtroom drama is blunt and its tone uneven, but as a crowd-pleasing Hong Kong thriller, it delivers enough satisfaction to be worth a watch.

Rating: 3.5/5